After seeing the film, many in the community have questions, many have aspirations to do something, many are mortified by what they saw, and some are skeptical about what’s happening here in the United States. The film has been met with criticism and controversy but has a powerful message that is inspiring many to take action. Tim Ballard, the founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR), and who the film is about, is no longer with OUR as of this month. OUR, which has encountered its own controversy over the years, admits that it doesn’t do any work within the United States, however it is now led by a friend from the Dallas anti-trafficking community. We, at TVF, aren’t in the business of making judgments about other nonprofits, especially those working to thwart human trafficking, but it felt timely to draft some thoughts relative to how the film depicts trafficking, versus what we see happening here in our backyard. 

There are several differences between the film’s portrayal of sex trafficking and what we see every day as an anti-trafficking agency. The glaring difference is the way the film ends. Without sharing any spoilers, you can imagine without seeing it that the film ends with “freedom.” Victims are rescued and everyone lives happily ever after...a perfect Hollywood ending. We actually wish this was accurate! Treasured Vessels, in large part, wouldn’t exist if this were true. Unfortunately, what happens after “rescue” is reported by most of the survivors we serve as the hardest part...even harder than the gruesome reality of trafficking. So hard, in fact, that we’ve stopped using the term “rescue” to describe it. We use terms like recovery, identification, or escape, because what comes next is the long, arduous, but beautiful process of recovery. 100% of the survivors TVF serves, enter our safe house program with symptoms of the highest form of PTSD, which includes dissociation – many with dissociative identity disorder, a disorder developed when a survivor's mind separates itself from the body to survive repeated trauma so often that they lose control of it, creating multiple personalities within their mind. Most survivors need intensive therapy, a safe place to live, education, job skills, record expungement, tattoo removal or coverup, legal documents, amongst a myriad of other services and support. 

Another major difference between the film and the reality of what we see every day is the entry point to trafficking by kidnapping. According to the Polaris Project, who operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, “The most pervasive myth about human trafficking is that it often involves kidnapping or physically forcing someone into a situation. In reality, most traffickers use psychological means such as, tricking, defrauding, manipulating, or threatening victims into providing commercial sex or exploitative labor.” The reason why the harm done in trafficking is so hard to recover from is that it is usually done by a loved one, a trusted person, or even a family member. This is also why “Connection in Community” is one of TVF’s program pillars. The best way to heal from relational hurts is through relationship.  

While Sound of Freedom is a great film, with an exciting story, it depicts a narrow type of trafficking that doesn’t happen often in America, where the victim is held by force and transported to another country. The problem with showing this narrow and stereotypical example of a trafficking victim, is that a domestic victim – who is in love with her pimp, lives freely, sleeps in a nice, suburban home, and turns tricks every night so that her boyfriend-pimp doesn’t beat her up – thinks, “my life doesn't look anything like that.” And we miss an amazing opportunity to educate the public, identify more victims, and tell accurate stories about what’s happening here in Dallas or Frisco. The domestic victim goes on believing there’s nothing better for him or her, they think trafficking is something that happens in shipping containers in other countries, and the traumas that TVF works to break down, continue to pile up. In our experience, the two most common types of traffickers are the romeo-trafficker and the familial trafficker. The romeo-trafficker, or boyfriend-pimp, typically grooms their victim online, acts as a boyfriend, showers their victim with gifts and words of affirmation at first (love bombing), then slowly evolves into the controlling manager and abuser they hid in the beginning to build trust and devotion. The familial trafficker is a family member, most commonly a mother, who exploits a child for money, whether for rent, drugs, or in exchange for services. This is usually born out of poverty or another desperate situation. It can also commonly be generational, where grandfather was a pimp, then father, then son. The point being, it can look like many different things - different socio-economic classes, different genders, and for much different reasons. 

Obviously, we can’t expect one movie to address every nuance possible in a very complex, organized crime, but, like I tell my kids, our response is our responsibility. So ,what do we do now?  

TVF is in the process of launching a revised and refreshed training and education program. We’re training new volunteer trainers and we’re reaching out to schools, churches, community groups, and healthcare institutions to offer training for free. Our licensed professional counselor is training other clinicians, our founder, Alicia, is training parents and pastors, and we’re bringing in volunteers to educate students about internet safety and recruitment by traffickers. So, the offer is open to you as well. If you have a workplace, school, church, or business that would benefit from hearing about what’s really happening in North Texas, we’d love to partner with you to help protect children and equip community members to fight back. 

LEARN MORE & REQUEST TRAINING - (https://treasuredvessels.org/education)  

Brad Walcher 
Vice President